For the most part, I have always been a homebody. It started when I was young, newly married, and had small children. The funds weren’t available to go out to dinner or go on vacation so being a homebody was all there was.
As things got better and vacations were planned, I remember driving to the airport many times and wishing I was going home instead. Home is my comfort zone as I’m sure it is for others. We’ve all heard someone say, “I can’t wait to get back in my own bed again.” That’s your comfort zone.
Before the Coronavirus or COVID-19 came into our lives a few short weeks ago, I was still a homebody. I was, however, able to enjoy vacations without wishing I was home so I made some strides over the years.
BUT, without a doubt, this quarantine is getting old. Most of the country, and the world for that matter, is quarantined to their homes while we wait for this dreaded disease to subside. Whether or not you want to admit it, this situation is changing all of us.
In the meantime, social media has helped a great many of us to get our creative juices flowing. There are YouTube videos that folks are making about what they’re doing while quarantined…everything from singing and dancing, cooking and baking, and how to sew those oh-so-sought-after face masks that the CDC is encouraging all of us to wear if we have to leave the house.
I’ve done my part the last several days by posting some of my dads quirky, but clean jokes on Facebook. All of his daughters have heard these jokes a hundred times but the rest of the world hasn’t and it’s time they did. While I’m typing them on Facebook from a book of his jokes that I put together several years ago, I’m laughing and laughing even though I know how each joke ends! Simply put…we need to laugh now more than ever.
Also, don’t stop doing things that you would normally do. Easter is this coming Sunday. Quarantined doesn’t mean there can’t be the usual high demand for spiral-sliced hams and green bean casserole. Some may be wondering if all the bother of an Easter dinner without family or friends is worth it. There are only two of us at my house but I am still going to make an Easter dinner. The leftovers will be great. We are also taking advantage of this time at home to get a lot of indoor and outdoor projects completed, and we’re watching a lot of shows that make us laugh.
Another question was posed to Facebook Land this morning. Once this quarantine is lifted, do you think everything will go back to the way it was? My answer is, “How can it and do we really want it to?” There are restaurants, bars, and stores that will not re-open, we are most likely going to be in a recession, we will no longer need certain things we found we can live without, and maybe a little residual fear of spreading our wings too quickly in the event that someone still may have ‘the bug’.
Take a minute and think about your life prior to the quarantine and what has changed since. What do you miss about your ‘old life’ and what do you like about your ‘new life’? I’m sure most folks miss seeing their family and friends, going shopping, out to dinner, meeting for drinks, going to church, and many other social activities we took for granted. Who would have ever dreamed that we would be quarantined to our houses for weeks? I sometimes think this is a bad dream.
So maybe we need to take a few of the best things from our ‘old life’ and mix them with a few of the best things from our ‘new life’. Maybe afterwards our families will be closer, communication skills will be better, and our appreciation for freedom will be greater. If some of these things actually make our lives better, this quarantine will have been the best thing to happen to us.
Here’s one of dad’s jokes…and it is quite funny: A guy and his wife are sleeping and it’s 3 in the morning. There’s a pounding on the door. His wife said, “Honey, there’s someone at the door. Go see who it is.” The guy goes downstairs and opens the door. There’s a drunk standing there. The drunk said, “I need a push.” The guys replies, “Sober up and go home.” He slams the door in his face. He goes back to bed and his wife asks, “Who was it?” The husband told her it was some drunk who needed a push and I told him to go home. His wife said, “Honey, did you forget last winter when we were stuck in a snowbank during a blizzard and a nice man came by with his pickup truck and pulled us out? The least you could do is help him.” So he put on his rain gear, boots and hat, goes downstairs and yells out, “Hey, do you still need a push?” The drunk said, “Yeah.” The guy asked him, “Where are you?” The drunk said, “Over here on the swing.”
Back to Basics 